It was on the Rec not far from where the children’s play area is now located. Until the late 1980s it was still possible to see the concrete bed which helped secure the balloon.
Thursday, 13 August 2026
A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 15 a barrage balloon
It was on the Rec not far from where the children’s play area is now located. Until the late 1980s it was still possible to see the concrete bed which helped secure the balloon.
Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 7 County Street
This is County Street which is so unremarkable that it’s another of those narrow side streets not even worth a glance.
It is situated off Mount Street between Central Street and Lloyd Street, and goes nowhere.
It has none of the mysterious promise of other small side streets which might entice you in.
True it is narrow enough but it is also very short, ends in a dead end and has no twisty bits which make you wonder what is round the corner.
By 1900 it was just what you see now, although then it was called Chapel Street and ran into the back of the Memorial Hall and which is now a restaurant.
Go back just another fifty years and the street was indeed a more twisty stretch continuing all the way down to Coach Makers Entry which ran from Jackson’s Row to Lloyd Street.
And had you turned into it from Mount Street in 1851 it would have led to Brignall’s Dye Works and a Tannery before going off north and east taking in any properties and passing the backs of another six buildings before exiting out on Coach Makers Entry, where for good measure there was the Coach Makers Arms.
I can’t be sure when it was cut but it will date from after 1819, and indeed just fifteen years earlier this was just open land with a pond where the Albert Square Chop House now stands.
So it may not be much now but go back long enough and there was a lot more to that dead end, with plenty of stories just waiting to be uncovered.
Location, Manchester
Pictures; County Street, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the street in 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
 |
| County Street, 2016 |
It has none of the mysterious promise of other small side streets which might entice you in.
True it is narrow enough but it is also very short, ends in a dead end and has no twisty bits which make you wonder what is round the corner.
By 1900 it was just what you see now, although then it was called Chapel Street and ran into the back of the Memorial Hall and which is now a restaurant.
Go back just another fifty years and the street was indeed a more twisty stretch continuing all the way down to Coach Makers Entry which ran from Jackson’s Row to Lloyd Street.
And had you turned into it from Mount Street in 1851 it would have led to Brignall’s Dye Works and a Tannery before going off north and east taking in any properties and passing the backs of another six buildings before exiting out on Coach Makers Entry, where for good measure there was the Coach Makers Arms.
 |
| The street in 1851 |
So it may not be much now but go back long enough and there was a lot more to that dead end, with plenty of stories just waiting to be uncovered.
Location, Manchester
Pictures; County Street, 2016, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and the street in 1851 from Adshead’s map of Manchester, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
The Parade Pickford Lane, Bexleyheath
And I hope will also have some stories to tell us.
So I shall just leave it at that, the Parade, Pickford Lane, Bexleyheath sometime before now.
And soon after it was posted someone offered up a date, "this photo has to be pre 1925 as my flat is not even built yet. You see where the horse and cart is? That's where we are and they built a new set of shops and flats just after 1925."
All I need now is to know who this was and thank them properly.
Picture; courtesy of Mark Flynn, http://www.markfynn.com/london-postcards.htm
Wednesday, 12 August 2026
A history of Chorlton in just 20 objects number 14, petrol pumps on Claude Road
It was at the top of Claude Road as it turns west and is an odd place to site a petrol pump. I remember it well and vaguely used to wonder why it was there. My photograph dates from 1972 and the pump was still there twenty or so years later until the bit of land behind the pump was developed into a row of houses in what is now Rainbow Close. Before that it was just a bit of open land and I guess was the site of either a garage or small builder’s yard. Now the Egerton and Lloyd estates had not permitted industrial development here in Chorlton but there were plenty of small areas given over to the working of local craftsmen which will feature in more detail tomorrow, so it maybe that our pump served just such an enterprise.
Which just leaves me to add from a contributor, "I grew up at 41 Claude road there were two petrol pumps one either side.it was a row of workshops where they did repair cars they also owned no. 45 Claude Road which they rented out.the owner had a classic car with running boards and a starting handle as kids in the 70's we cut through the garages to get to the brook to play."
Picture; Street furniture on Claude Road, 1972, m58833, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass
Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester .......... nu 5 Bow Lane
Now I am not surprised that Bow Lane rarely features in the street directories.
These were the books which were issued annually from the 1780s up to 1969 and listed the streets, the residents and the businesses in the city.
Bow Lane which runs from Cross Street over Clarence Street and then twist on to Princess Street seems unworthy of much of a mention; although to be fair there were two listings for 1911.
And twists it does widening as it travels up from Cross Street but now just a cut through for anyone wanting to avoid the main streets. That said it does offer an opportunity to look into the Town Hall Tavern.
Location; Manchester
Pictures; Bow Lane, 2016 from the collection of Andy Robertson
Bow Lane which runs from Cross Street over Clarence Street and then twist on to Princess Street seems unworthy of much of a mention; although to be fair there were two listings for 1911.
And twists it does widening as it travels up from Cross Street but now just a cut through for anyone wanting to avoid the main streets. That said it does offer an opportunity to look into the Town Hall Tavern.
Location; Manchester
Pictures; Bow Lane, 2016 from the collection of Andy Robertson
This really is the last of Sidcup in 1961
They were marketing a collection of images of the High Street in 1961 and this one of the parish church was too good not to include.
Location; Sidcup, London
Picture; Parish Church, Sidcup, from the set Sidcup by Tuck and Sons, courtesy of Tuck DB, https://www.tuckdb.org/,
Tuesday, 11 August 2026
The mob in Didsbury in 1793 …………… opposing progress and the ideas of the day
January 1793 was an uncertain time across the country.
The weather was unseeingly cold, the harvest had been poor, and in France the survival of the monarchy was in doubt.
All of which might explain why a crowd gathered to watch as an effigy of that well-known radical, Thomas Paine was burned on the village green in front of the two village pubs.*
And after the event some of the crowd will have settled down in the Old Cock, and the Ring o’Bells which would be rebuilt as the Church Inn and is now the Didsbury Hotel.
Just how many of those swapping stories in the two pubs, were in favour of Tom Paine, and how many had taken against the man who supported both the American and the French Revolutions, we will never know, but our two publicans may well have been pleased at the turn of events which brought in the customers.
The crowd who assembled to see the event may have been driven by a fear of Paine’s ideas or out of sheer curiosity, but they weren’t alone, because in all that orgy of burning, Bromsgrove in Worcestershire was “the only town in England in which an effigy of Tom Paine was not burned”, leaving the Manchester Guardian to add that there in Bromsgrove, “Democracy predominates.”**
And that leads me to the only description of a burning that we have for Manchester, which was the one carried out on December 17th 1792,
"The inhabitants at top Deansgate, hanged the effigy of Tom Paine, dressed in a Maroon coloured Coat, Striped Waistcoat, and greasy pair of Breeches, a Barber’s Block with a Wig on supplied the Place of a Head, from his Coat Pockets hung shreds of Paper and on the shoulder a Quantity of Thread, emblematical of his deviant Trade, with ‘The Rights of Man’ stitched on his Breast; thus he hung an Hour, amidst the Acclamations of Hundreds of Spectators; he was afterwards dragged through the Streets, and then committed to the flames the Populace singing ‘God Save the King’"***
This event came during a surge of ‘loyalism’ in Manchester where a carefully crafted campaign had been waged against those who had embraced the French Revolution and argued for a Radical ideas.
In the same month, the home of Thomas Walker on South Parade was attacked by an organized mob of Church and King supporters, and Walker was forced to drive them off by discharging a pistol.
Writing later of the event he commented,
“Emboldened by drink and fired on by agitators, groups hostile to the radicals began to gather around the city. Walker was in no doubt that this was pre-planned.
Parties were collected in different public houses, and from thence paraded in the streets with a fiddler before them, and carrying board on which was painted with CHURCH and KING in large letters’
On four separate occasions a mob gathered outside South Parade, broke the windows and attempted to force their way in. Supported by friends Thomas Walker was forced to fire into the air to disperse the crowds.
The magistrates did nothing to prevent the events and while a “regiment of dragoons was in town, booted and under arms” and ready to disperse the rioters no order was given.
As if to add insult to injury the main concern of the magistrates when they finally met Walker was that he should not fire at the crowd again if the mob returned! These attacks had been matched by similar ones on the home of Priestly in Birmingham and in Nottingham.” ****
Location; Didsbury and Manchester
Pictures; Thomas Paine, 1792, Thomas Walker. 1794, Didsbury showing the Church Inn and Old Cock, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
*Axon, William, The Annals of Manchester, 1885, page 120
** Bromsgrove, Manchester Guardian, January 20th, 1793
***Manchester Mercury, January 1, 1793, quoted by O’Gorman Frank, Manchester Loyalism in the 1790s from Return to Peterloo Manchester Region History Review, Volume 23 2012
**** Walker, Thomas, A Review of some of the events of the last five years, London 1794 page 23
 |
| Didsbury in 1853 |
All of which might explain why a crowd gathered to watch as an effigy of that well-known radical, Thomas Paine was burned on the village green in front of the two village pubs.*
And after the event some of the crowd will have settled down in the Old Cock, and the Ring o’Bells which would be rebuilt as the Church Inn and is now the Didsbury Hotel.
Just how many of those swapping stories in the two pubs, were in favour of Tom Paine, and how many had taken against the man who supported both the American and the French Revolutions, we will never know, but our two publicans may well have been pleased at the turn of events which brought in the customers.
The crowd who assembled to see the event may have been driven by a fear of Paine’s ideas or out of sheer curiosity, but they weren’t alone, because in all that orgy of burning, Bromsgrove in Worcestershire was “the only town in England in which an effigy of Tom Paine was not burned”, leaving the Manchester Guardian to add that there in Bromsgrove, “Democracy predominates.”**
 |
| Thomas Paine, 1792 |
"The inhabitants at top Deansgate, hanged the effigy of Tom Paine, dressed in a Maroon coloured Coat, Striped Waistcoat, and greasy pair of Breeches, a Barber’s Block with a Wig on supplied the Place of a Head, from his Coat Pockets hung shreds of Paper and on the shoulder a Quantity of Thread, emblematical of his deviant Trade, with ‘The Rights of Man’ stitched on his Breast; thus he hung an Hour, amidst the Acclamations of Hundreds of Spectators; he was afterwards dragged through the Streets, and then committed to the flames the Populace singing ‘God Save the King’"***
This event came during a surge of ‘loyalism’ in Manchester where a carefully crafted campaign had been waged against those who had embraced the French Revolution and argued for a Radical ideas.
In the same month, the home of Thomas Walker on South Parade was attacked by an organized mob of Church and King supporters, and Walker was forced to drive them off by discharging a pistol.
Writing later of the event he commented,
“Emboldened by drink and fired on by agitators, groups hostile to the radicals began to gather around the city. Walker was in no doubt that this was pre-planned.
 |
| Thomas Walker, 1794 |
On four separate occasions a mob gathered outside South Parade, broke the windows and attempted to force their way in. Supported by friends Thomas Walker was forced to fire into the air to disperse the crowds.
The magistrates did nothing to prevent the events and while a “regiment of dragoons was in town, booted and under arms” and ready to disperse the rioters no order was given.
As if to add insult to injury the main concern of the magistrates when they finally met Walker was that he should not fire at the crowd again if the mob returned! These attacks had been matched by similar ones on the home of Priestly in Birmingham and in Nottingham.” ****
Location; Didsbury and Manchester
Pictures; Thomas Paine, 1792, Thomas Walker. 1794, Didsbury showing the Church Inn and Old Cock, 1853, from the OS for Lancashire, 1841-53, courtesy of Digital Archives Association, http://digitalarchives.co.uk/
*Axon, William, The Annals of Manchester, 1885, page 120
** Bromsgrove, Manchester Guardian, January 20th, 1793
***Manchester Mercury, January 1, 1793, quoted by O’Gorman Frank, Manchester Loyalism in the 1790s from Return to Peterloo Manchester Region History Review, Volume 23 2012
**** Walker, Thomas, A Review of some of the events of the last five years, London 1794 page 23
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